


Artifice

by epersonae



Series: The Journal-Keeper [24]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Grand Relics, There's literally no way Magnus named it the Temporal Chalice, Thrall - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 02:32:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13401585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epersonae/pseuds/epersonae
Summary: Magnus has to do magic. Taako helps out. Lucretia disapproves of a name. Magic items -- relics and otherwise -- are created.





	Artifice

**i. Bear Face & 2th**

Magnus looks around nervously after Lup and Barry describe their meeting at the Arcanium.

“You mean we...uh, we all hafta...make magic items?”

“That’s what they said,” says Barry. “Sorry bud.”

“I mean, you know some cantrips by now, at least, right?” adds Lup.

“Uh….” Magnus turns bright red and looks down at his hands. He can _make_ stuff, sure, but make it magical? In eighty-some years, he’s managed to learn Light (sometimes accidentally casting Darkness), Message (occasionally the words are all out of order), and Thaumaturgy (he can make his voice extra-loud).

“We gotcha, my dude,” says Taako. “No worries.” He and Lucretia exchange a look and a little nod.

When they arrive at the magical laboratories, Taako and Lucretia instantly take up spots on either side of Magnus without a word spoken. He looks from side to side, anxiety written clearly on his boyish face.

“You want something to kick a little more ass, yeah?” says Taako, as he lays out an assortment of gems to embed into the blades of the glaive already sitting on the lab bench.

“I mean, I was kinda thinking about a cool helmet? Something with a little extra protection?” He takes out a rough sketch of something with horns and teeth that manages to be both menacing and endearing. Lucretia hides a smile behind her hands.

“No, no, my dude: I know you.” Taako shakes his head, smooths out the drawing. “You want to terrify and then butt some heads. Show me your ingredients and we’ll see what we can put together. Lucy, stop fussing that glass ball and help cha’boy out.”

Together they watch as Magnus upends a bag full of teeth and horns and bits of just _stuff_. It spills out across the table and into where Barry is apparently doing something with a box.

“Hey bud, keep to your side of the table,” he says, and Magnus scoops it all up, then sets a rounded helmet on top of the pile. Lucretia raises an eyebrow.

“If you help with the helmet, maybe I can do something else? This is going to be fairly straightforward, I think.”

“Sounds good. We’ve got a lot of stuff to work with.”

She sorts through the pile while Taako runs his hands over the helmet, muttering to himself. Magnus frowns slightly as he looks back and forth between them. She pushes a few enormous fangs towards Taako.

“Here, if you take those, maybe we can make something a little more generally protective but less conspicuous with these?” She’s made a small pile of smaller bear’s teeth and starts arranging them by size.

“Inconspicuous?” Magnus says with a disappointed tone.

She cracks a grin. “I didn’t say _in_ conspicuous, I said _less_ conspicuous. Something you could wear to a state dinner or out at the market, not just into battle.”

Taako looks over at them. “Maggie is absolutely going to wear this rig to a state dinner.”

She shrugs. “Fair.” She unclasps a chain from around her neck. It’s not especially sentimental, but he did give it to her, cycles and cycles ago. She holds it up against his neck.

“Aw babe, you don’t have to give up your necklace, I can get a leather thong or something.”

Taako puts a hand on his shoulder.

“My dude. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. ‘Sides, it’ll be all extra-magic and shit, coming from your gal.”

“Thank you, Taako. I think.”

“No problemo.”

 

**ii. The Temporal Chalice**

“I’m still not very good at this,” he says, holding a golden chalice in his clasped hands. “Will you help with my part?”

She’s still uncomfortable about the whole idea. She’s been putting off starting hers, despite the piece of the Light, the actual Light of Creation, sitting on the workbench waiting for her.

“Can’t Taako help you?” she says, and the question comes out more peevishly than she intends. “He made that bear helmet with you.”

Magnus shrugs.

“He said he had a lot of work to put into his, but he might’ve been goofing?”

“It’s just a stone,” she says. Somehow she can’t keep her tone civil about any of this. Every year, when they get the Light just a little bit too late, or not at all, she feels...relief. She’s not supposed to, but she does. “He’s got to be done by now.”

“You…. You haven’t started yours?” He looks at her in surprise. She bites her tongue: why is he so surprised?

“No.”

His face falls a bit; she remembers that he was the only one who even considered her idea, and she softens just a little.

“All right, let’s go to the lab. I’ll do mine, we’ll get Taako to help you do yours.”

“Maybe if I offer to do extra dishes?”

She scoffs. “He doesn’t do any dishes anyway. But sure.” She touches the lip of the cup. “That’s pretty. You decided what it’s going to do?”

“Something with time, I guess. Like, get a do-over if you fuck something up?”

“Interesting. I hope….” She doesn't know what she hopes. That it never gets used? That it gets used out of kindness? She lets the thought trail away.

“I'm going to call it the Time Cup,” he says with a grin as they walk into the lab.

“Really?”

“Really what?” says Taako, cocking an eyebrow at them both.

“Will you tell Magnus that he can't name his magic item ‘Time Cup’?”

He looks from Lucretia to Magnus.

“Okay, Maggie, so that's the cup in question?”

“Gonna be.”

“And what do you want it to do?”

“Let folks go back in time and change stuff.”

“So, a cup that affects time. A time cup, if you will.”

Magnus beams. Lucretia sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Fine, you help him make the _Time Cup_. If you're not too busy. I have work to do.”

Taako shoots her a quizzical look.

“All right, c’mere bubeleh. Divimination ain’t exactly Taako’s strong suit, but I think I can help you get the effect you’re looking for.”

Magnus heads to Taako’s spot in the lab and places the cup on the table. In front of them, on a small metal stand, is Taako’s item. She’d thought he was being simplistic by making it just a stone with transmutation powers, but she can feel the immense energies radiating off of the thing, as she feels it _begging_ her to create mountains of untold wealth. She shivers and looks away from it, looks away from them.

She goes to her own station, where she’s faced with a long oak staff -- found three cycles ago but not needed until now -- and the soft pulsing glow of a seventh of the Light of Creation. Whatever her feelings about this plan, which she hates as much as she ever did, it’s easy to get lost in the process of creating.

The shield she’s been perfecting for decades: she’ll put that magic into it, something to protect, not to change, not to fight, just to hold steady. Her hands brush over the whorls of wood. _You can protect them_ , it murmurs: she doesn’t realize that it’s not her own voice. Bulwark, she thinks, the glow of this new magic item reflected in her eyes.

When she looks up, a similar glow emanates from the chalice in Magnus’s hands. Taako’s hands are brushing over his, and she feels a momentary pang of regret for not helping him. His eyes are wide and nervous, the way he gets around magic sometimes. He looks up at her and blinks once, slowly.

“I guess these are the last of them, then,” he says. She nods, unable to speak.

“Good job, my man,” says Taako, giving him a suspiciously hearty clap on the back. “Let’s lock these up with the others and let’s have a little party, yeah?” She smiles; it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Saving the world, kids, that’s how we do.”


End file.
